Click on the advert above to visit the company web site

Product category: Weighing systems, Strain gauges
News Release from: UK Weighing Federation | Subject: Measuring Instruments Directive
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial Team on 24 June 2005

The Measuring Instruments Directive - 13
years on

John Anthony, Technical Officer for the UK Weighing Federation, looks at the implications of the new Measuring Instruments Directive for users and manufacturers of weighing and measuring equipment

Significant changes are happening across the European Union in the field of legal metrology John Anthony, Technical Officer for the UK Weighing Federation, looks at the implications of the new Measuring Instruments Directive for users and manufacturers of weighing and measuring equipment

Legal weights and measures are fundamental to a sustainable trading economy and the UK has had relevant legislation for over 1000 years.

The general principle has always been the same; the public are entitled to receive the quantity of goods that they pay for, and the weighing and measuring equipment used to determine that quantity has to be accurate within defined limits.

Our legislation developed slowly, enforcement was not always effective and for centuries our units were not standardised.

However by the late 19th Century we finally reached a situation where we had uniform national legislation, a regularised locally based enforcement regime, and a three pronged system of Type Approval, Initial Verification and In-service Control for all weighing and measuring equipment used for trade purposes.

Under this system a single agency, the Board of Trade, took on the role of Type Approval, while verification and in-service control were delegated to the Weights and Measures Inspectors employed by the local municipal authorities.

This system, which is similar to that adopted in most western states, has served us well until the present day.

Indeed it could be said that it has now reached the stage where accurate weighing and measuring for trade is taken for granted.

Most of the population believe that it 'just happens', because it has always happened that way.

But do we need such a system? After all if things are such that our weights and measures can be taken for granted, why do we need to have lots of controls? The reason is quite simple.

According to a recent publication by the National Weights and Measures Laboratory (the successors to the Board of Trade as far as Type Approval is concerned), there are over GBP2bn worth of transactions in such things as food, fuels and alcoholic beverages every week in the UK! Put another way, almost GBP200,000 worth of products are weighed or measured for trade purposes every minute of every day.

If there were no system of control, if legislation to prevent short weight or measure did not exist, then the potential for economic damage to the consumer would be enormous.

So we need our weights and measures law, and we need the control over the equipment used for weighing and measuring the goods we buy.

But is our law up-to-date? Does it reflect modern technology and modern trading patterns? In short the answer is "No".

The legislation we have today is very similar to that which existed at the start of the 20th Century.

Our Weights and Measures Acts have been updated (most notably in 1963) and consolidated but in terms of a real review and modernisation little has been done.

The Act we have now, the 1985 Act, was a consolidation of previous acts, and the supporting Regulations are piecemeal, old and in some cases irrelevant.

It is time for a real review.

The DTI, guardians of our legislation on weights and measures are taking a number of steps to improve the situation, primarily on the labelling and packaging of food, but in one area, the control of weighing and measuring equipment, they are being helped by the recently adopted European Directive on measuring instruments, 2004/22/EEC.

The Directive is based on some thirteen years of debate, discussion and argument within the EU.

In 1990, the Commission adopted a Directive on the harmonisation of the law in Member States relating to Non-automatic Weighing Instruments, 90/384/EEC.

(Non-automatic Weighing Instruments - NAWI - are those which need the presence and action of an operator in order to weigh.

The most common example is the weighing instrument used to weigh the goods we buy over the counter at our local grocery store.) That Directive, 90/384/EEC, obliged Member States to adopt a common system of Type Approval and Initial Verification.

The technical rules across the EU were harmonised, the barriers to cross border trade in such instruments were removed and the manufacturers of those instruments were given the opportunity to develop and get accreditation for quality systems that would allow them to carry out the initial verification for themselves rather than having to use the services of Trading Standards Officers (the new name for Weights and Measures Inspectors).

Having dealt with NAWI, the European Commission intended to turn its attention to other categories of measuring equipment, but events overtook this plan and the New Approach method of preparing and adopting Directives came into force.

Under the New Approach, Directives are now much simpler and most, if not all, of the detailed technical requirements are omitted.

The Directives merely set out a number of "essential requirements" that have to be achieved.

These requirements are either performance based or set out in very general terms.

Compliance with the requirements can be demonstrated by conformance to harmonised Standards.

Manufacturers who choose to follow this route to compliance are guaranteed that their products will meet the requirements.

However if the wish they can adopt alternative solutions, provided that they can demonstrate that the requirements are met.

The New Approach philosophy of drafting Directives enabled the Commission to abandon its plan for a series of Directives covering each of the types of measuring instruments used for commercial purposes in favour of one single Directive that would encompass a whole range of measuring instruments.

Unfortunately this didn't prevent all that debate, discussion and argument, and it took thirteen years for the Directive to be agreed and adopted.

The Measuring Instruments Directive was finally adopted by the EU Council Of Ministers on 30th March 2004, and was published in The Official Journal on 30th April 2004.

Member States now have until 30th April 2006 to introduce into their national legislation laws implementing the Directive, and that legislation has to come into effect on 30th October 2006.

The Directive is intended to harmonise the legislation across the EU for a whole range of measuring instruments including: Water Meters Gas Meters and volume conversion devices Active Electrical Energy Meters Heat Meters Systems for the continuous and dynamic measurement of quantities of liquids other than water Automatic Weighing Instruments Taximeters Material measures Dimensional Measuring Instruments Exhaust Gas analysers.

The body of the Directive gives the legal framework for the legislation; the obligations on Member States, the requirements for some level of conformance assessment, (it varies according to the category of measuring instrument) the requirement for CE marking including a special Metrology mark to indicate conformance with the MID, and the powers and duties of the European Commission in relation to future amendments of the Directive.

There are however a number of unique features about the Directive.

Although it is a New Approach Directive, and such Directives are intended to harmonise requirements across the EU and remove any technical barriers to trade, this Directive contains a so called optionality clause that allows Member States to determine for themselves those categories of instruments for which they will legislate.

Each Member State can decide for each category of measuring instrument whether or not to implement the Directive.

For those categories of instruments that they choose to legislate for, they must apply the requirements of the Directive.

If they choose not to legislate for a particular category then they cannot impose any controls at all.

This optionality clause will, instead of creating a single market, almost certainly mean that there will be dual markets for some, if not all of the categories of instruments within the scope of the Directive.

With 25 Member States in the EU, it is inevitable that not every State will legislate for every category of instrument.

The UK for instance has already decided that it will not for the foreseeable future introduce controls on automatic check-weighers.

This is despite the fact that these instruments are already controlled in most, if not all of the other Member States, and will continue to be controlled under the MID.

So although the Directive will establish common requirements and therefore a "common market" in those States where the legislation is applied, it will also create a different "common market" with no rules in those Member States who choose not to apply the legislation.

The cost of compliance for those manufacturers that supply into the legislated markets will be significant, certainly enough to prevent them from competing on a like for like cost basis against manufacturers who design and make their products for the unregulated market.

One of the features of New Approach directives is that they do not contain detailed technical requirements and specifications.

Instead they define "essential requirements" in terms of performance and other characteristics and then leave it to manufacturers to demonstrate that their designs do in fact meet the essential requirements.

One of the ways in which these Directives envisage manufacturers meeting these requirements is to design and produce equipment that meets "harmonised standards".

The European Commission issues a mandate to one of the European Standards making bodies (CEN, CENELEC or ETSI) to produce a European Standard for the particular equipment.

The Commission then publishes details of this Standard in the Official Journal.

Whilst this option exists in the MID, an additional option has been introduced, the so called "Normative Document".

These Normative Documents will be based very closely on OIML Recommendations, and will be developed and produced by the OIML on a mandate from the Commission.

Whilst this may seem to be a simple alternative procedure it differs significantly from the process for developing and adopting European Standards.

CEN and CENELEC are industry lead; industry not only participates in the development of Standards, it leads the process and has an equal voice in the decisions with all the other interested parties.

OIML is a treaty organisation for its Member States.

Other interested parties such as manufacturers or users may, but need not, be consulted during the preparation of an OIML Recommendation, but even then they have no right of audience or right to vote.

The MID gives the European Commission the power to establish a "Measuring Instruments Committee" made up of the Metrological Authorities from the Member States.

The Commission can then propose amendments to certain parts of the Directive and consult the Committee about them.

If the Committee agrees the Commission can then go ahead and introduce the amendments.

Again there is no right of audience for other interested parties such as industry; although some last minute amendments by the European Parliament did ensure that the Commission had to inform interested parties that they were proposing amendments.

There will be a transition period of 10 years, during which, equipment that is legally on the market under relevant national legislation at the time the Directive comes into effect, can continue to be placed on the market after the implementation date even if it does not meet the MID requirements.

As mentioned earlier, Type Approval and Initial Verification have been mainstays of the control of weighing and measuring equipment for over a century.

As well as recognising and continuing with this approach, the Directive also recognises the changes that have been made in industry generally over the last two decades, particularly in regard to the adoption and implementation of Quality Management systems.

Those manufacturers who have adopted Quality Management can, if they wish to do so, seek an extension to their Quality Management accreditation that will allow them to take on the "initial verification" duties normally performed by the Weights and Measures Inspectors.

For the simpler equipment there will no longer be any need for Type Approval and in some instances where Type Approval would normally be required the accredited manufacturer can instead opt to use Design Approval as a substitute for Type Approval.

Type Approval means submitting an exemplar of the instrument together with all the construction and design data to the appropriate agency and allowing that agency to perform a whole range of performance testing and an assessment of all the features and facilities.

Design Approval will offer the accredited manufacturer the opportunity to carry out his own performance testing and assessment.

He will then submit that data together with his design documents to the agency.

In turn the agency will assess the data supplied, confirm that it shows conformance with the essential requirements and issue a Design Assessment Certificate which will replace the Type Approval Certificate.

For those products that require Type Approval or Design Approval, the manufacturer will find that one size fits all.

He will not have to seek Approval in every Member State he wants to sell into, a Type Approval or Design Approval issued in one Member State will be valid in every other Member State.

This will reduce costs and reduce "time to market".

So what happens now? The UK like every other Member State has to introduce the necessary legislation into its national framework.

Most of the work will be done by the National Weights and Measures Laboratory who will be responsible for drafting the majority of the legislation to implement the MID.

An initial consultation document has already been published and in summer 2005 the draft legislation will be put out for comment.

Manufacturers and users of any of the types of equipment covered by the Directive should take the opportunity to respond to the initial consultation already published, and the draft regulations later in the year.

Will the new system provide us as consumers with the same degree of protection that the traditional system gave us? There is no reason to suppose it will not.

Indeed if the experience of that part of the weighing industry that has been working under the Non-automatic weighing instruments Directive is anything to go by there can only be benefits.

Type Approval times have reduced and costs have come down, Users have benefited as installation times for new equipment and down time for repaired equipment have reduced significantly because manufacturers have been able to combine installation and repair with verification.

Consumers have noticed no ill effects, there has been no increase in the number of complaints of short weight or measure, and Trading Standards Officers have been able to devote more time to dealing with those aspects of consumer protection that are problem areas.

In short, it has been a win-win situation.

The Measuring Instruments Directive should prove equally as effective.

• UK Weighing Federation: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Processingtalk email newsletter
• Processingtalk Home Page

Search the Pro-Talk network of sites

Put your news on Processingtalk  |   Advertise  |   Get the free Processingtalk newsletter  |   Processingtalk Home
About Processingtalk  |   Copyright © 2000-2008 Pro-Talk Ltd, UK